One Hand above the Water
by sakuuya
Summary: Fifteen years after saving the world, Ichigo finds herself trapped in a life she doesn't think she can bear. !Winner of BroadwayObsessedGirl54's Kish/Ichigo contest!


**One Hand above the Water**

This story was written for **BroadwayObsessedGirl54's Contest**. The prompt was what would happen if Ichigo had left with Kish when he asked in episode 45. I don't actually _watch _the anime, so I had to go find episode 45 and watch it without the context of the rest of the series. That's one of the reasons this fic's timeframe is what it is, so I don't have to worry about any subtleties I might have missed by not watching the rest of the series—though even this story's version of ep. 45 goes AU before the official point designated by the prompt.

**Disclaimer:** _Tokyo Mew Mew_ and "Not Waving but Drowning" belong to their respective copyright holders, neither of whom are me.

* * *

_Nobody heard him,the dead man,_  
_But still he lay moaning:_ _  
I was much further out than you thought_  
_And not waving but drowning._

–Stevie Smith, "Not Waving but Drowning"

* * *

The wind is high tonight, a constant reminder that I'm not on Earth. I don't know what it is about the air here that's different from what I remember, but there's something unfamiliar, even after a decade of life here. I set the raygun in my hand down on the balcony's guardrail with a barely-audible clack. I want to throw it to the ground, make a fuss, get _someone_ to notice me.

I think I'm the only living thing awake now. This is the aliens' capital city and yet, compared to the Tokyo of my youth, it's incredibly sedate. There's no concept of "nightlife" on this planet; my habit of staying up after the sun sets is considered a strange one. But they indulge me because I am important: the wife of an important official, an emissary from earth, the woman who saved their ecosystem.

Except that I'm not any of those things. Not any more. In the dwelling behind me, there are two small children, fast asleep. Right now, I am their mother, and that is all. It's funny. I used to be so many things at once. Now, I am a mother, and I am alone, with only the alien wind for company. I want to leave, to abandon this planet and all my duties here, to flee back to Earth where I might have a chance of having a real life.

No. Of course I don't want that. It would be unfair to Kish and the children, and I don't think I can bare to hurt them. Maybe it's just that guilt that keeps me here. What I'd really want, if I could have anything in the world, is to go back in time before the children were born, and, hell, before Kish meant a thing to me. If I could do it all again, I would stay on Earth.

I mean, I know why I left. It was a good reason. Saving the world. Kish asked me to come back to his home planet with him, coming onto me in the scuzzy way he always used to. I said no, of course. Firstly, because I had Masaya, and secondly because Kish was a creep.

Then he told me that he'd call off the whole war if I just came with him. I thought he was teasing, or lying. He said he was serious; I told him I needed proof. So he went off and got his friends, and they all swore to me that they would leave my planet alone if I'd only leave with them. They didn't give me any time to decide. Saving the world would be worth losing my soul, I thought, even if it also meant breaking Masaya's heart. He would understand that it was necessary.

I never even got a chance to say goodbye to everybody. Pai went to Ryou and told him what was happening, and I guess Ryou must have told the other Mews. Wonder of wonders, when Pai came back, he had with him a little vial of Mew Aqua that Ryou had given him in a gesture of good faith.

To this day, I still don't know how he managed to convince Ryou that they weren't going to just kidnap me and then return full-force. Maybe Ryou trusted me more than he let on and understood the nature of the sacrifice I was making. Or maybe I cowed them when I threatened to kill them all in their sleep if they went back on their word, and Pai told Ryou as much. I don't know.

It was horrible, at first. I had nothing to keep me there but my sheer bloody-minded conviction that I _would _save Earth, no matter the cost to myself. But then we made it to the planet. Oh, God, when I first stepped foot here, I understood what drove Kish and the others to try to invade my world. Thank God Ryou had let us have some Mew Aqua; otherwise, I think I would have gone nuts from having to live in such a desolate place.

They let me be the one to use the Mew Aqua, which actually did a lot to make me feel better about staying here. I was important. I had saved not only my own world, but this one as well. Accordingly, I was given a position advising the ruler, the same position Kish was given, as though I was really a diplomat and not just some poor bewildered girl he had picked up on Earth.

I wish I had never met Kish, or at least that he never took a liking to me. I've lived with him long enough to know that he really does love me. Who knows if he did from the beginning, or if lust blossomed into love at some intervening point, but I have no doubts that his love is true and deep. I don't love him. I appreciate everything he's done for me, and I care about him, but that's all.

If I don't want to leave, what the hell _do _I want, then? To kill myself? Is that why I came out here? That's why I bought the raygun—it's a peasant's weapon, something for the people on this planet not blessed with my husband's fantastic powers. But it would do the job, and be quiet about it. They wouldn't even find my body until tomorrow, probably.

God, there must be something wrong with me. Since I've lived on this planet, I've always had enough work to do that I felt productive and useful. Motherhood shouldn't weaken me like this. It should make me stronger, like it does for everyone else. I can be a Mew, a diplomat, and a wife, but I can't also be a mother. The kids take up so much of my time that I barely have any time for myself, let alone time to be a government official. I've had to take a leave of absence from my advising duties, and no one thinks that's strange. There are other mothers there, and they carry on just fine, but when it comes to me, they just think that I can't handle it because I'm a human and therefore naturally weaker or something. Never mind that I led the resistance on Earth, or that I've been a good advisor for nearly 15 years.

Nor can I talk to my husband about how I'm feeling. The problem might be that he thinks to highly of me. He can't believe or understand that I feel like my children are slowly killing me, because only a terrible person would feel that way, and he can't accept that I'm a terrible person. He smiles, and assumes that this is some normal thing that all mothers go through, but it's not. It can't be, or why would anyone possibly want to give birth?

This planet's moons bathe the little gun in greenish light, making it glow like something alive. I pick it up, weighing it in my palm. It's so light, like a toy gun, but it whirrs to life from the warmth of my hand, and the tip glows a shade of orange that looks warm and inviting in the alien light. I put my finger on the trigger, hold it up to my temple, and squeeze my eyes shut.

No. I can't go through with this. I have to do what's best for my husband, and my children, and this planet that I've adopted. If being a mother kills me, then it kills me, but at least I can die knowing that I did my duty right up until the end, when it would have been so easy to just take the coward's way out.

After all, saving the world is worth losing my soul.


End file.
